The AI Protocol
Ask Chat for some advice.
I’m not asking Chat for nothing. It’s artificial intelligence. Not Real.
That doesn’t mean it’s not helpful.
It can be. But I have my doubts.
The text message exchange continued with my sister. She tried to convince me to ask ChatGPT for parenting advice. Frustrated with my refusal, she asked Chat, and I lost another battle with AI.
Operation Avoid AI is a futile mission.
Everywhere we turn, AI greets us. Open Chrome and Gemini peeks over the browser’s tab. If we search Google for anything, an AI overview returns results.
AI can research, summarize, edit articles, and produce images. Apparently, it also offers parenting advice. The difficulties inherent to working and raising a family have vanished.
If asked, AI will gather information, analyze results, and create just about anything for us. However, comfort with less thinking brings more danger.
We learn best through the struggle to grasp knowledge, fail, and develop skills.
Evaluation and application are difficult jobs for our minds. Humans are hardwired to remember hard things. If we access every solution with ease, we risk significant societal setbacks.
Critical thinking and creativity are essential to change.
From school shootings in Oregon to riots in France and contaminated water in South Africa, we need the full capacity of our heads and hearts for solutions. AI can help, but it can’t lead our thought processes.
Many of us would lose our minds, figuratively and literally, if we went more than a few seconds without a phone.
We fear complicated tasks. Even the mundane job of responding to an email message from a friend or colleague is outsourced to AI.
Several people have asked me if I'm anti-AI. I respond the same way every time.
“No.”
If they probe further, I explain that AI is a useful tool to enhance our work. I use it to create images for presentations, edit writing, and search online.
My employer encourages faculty to recognize AI as a teaching and advising aide in medical education. We don’t have an AI protocol, but our handbook describes responsible use and expects students, staff, and faculty to follow it.
This week I used Co-pilot to verify the pathway to becoming a physician through the medical school where I work. I printed the reply, and my seasoned colleague verified its accuracy.
Most, if not all, students use AI to help them study. The challenge is that some ask AI to answer multiple-choice questions for them. AI should offer guidance for thinking through problems, not answers.
Remember, without struggle, learning is less likely to occur.
Students must grapple with concepts, ideas, and formulas to move the material from short-term to long-term memory. The ability to retain, reflect on, and retrieve information is fundamental to academic achievement.
Choosing to think without AI could save your life.
Consider the case in which a man described symptoms to an AI chatbot instead of a physician. He delayed getting medical treatment for chest discomfort, which later led to chronic heart failure. The incident occurred as RFK Jr. and JD Vance argued that AI is a resource comparable to a medical doctor.
We need trained physicians who can listen with empathy, interpret test results, suggest lifestyle changes, perform surgeries, and prescribe medicine. AI can help them do their jobs, but it can’t replace them.
Outside of work, I see AI as another tool. I don’t look for it to solve every problem. Some challenges, like parenting teenagers, require a human touch and real intelligence.
For more commentary on AI, parenting, and education, subscribe here. To read my books, written without AI assistance, see this page.
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